en prevented. Juliet saw clearly
where Mildred does not, that loyalty to a deep and true love should
triumph over all minor considerations, so that in her case the tragedy
is, in no sense, due to her blindness of vision. In the "Blot," lack of
perception of the true values in life makes it impossible for Mildred or
Tresham to act otherwise than they did. But having worked out their
problem according to their lights, a new light of a more glorious day
dawns upon them.

The ideal by which Tresham lives and moves and has his being is that of
pride of birth, with honor and chastity as its watchwords. At the same
time the idol of his life is his sister Mildred, over whom he has
watched with a father's and mother's care. When the blow to his ideal
comes at the hands of this much cherished sister, it is not to be
wondered at that his reason almost deserts him. The greatest agony
possible to the human soul is to have its ideals, the very food which
has been the sustenance of its being, utterly ruined. The ideal may be a
wrong one, or an impartial one, and through the wrack and ruin may dawn
larger vision, but, unless the nature be a marvelously developed one the
storm that breaks when an ideal is shattered is overwhelming.

It would be equally true of Mildred that, nurtured as she had been and
as young English girls usually are, in great purity, even ignorance of
all things pertaining to life, the sense of her sin would be so
overwhelming as to blind her to any possible means of expiation except
the most extreme. And indeed may it not be said that only those who can
see as Mertoun and Guendolen did that genuine and loyal love is no less
love because, in a conventional sense, it has sinned,--only those would
acknowledge, as Tresham, indeed, does after he has murdered Mertoun, how
perfect the love of Mildred and Mertoun was. Sin flourishes only when
insincerity tricks itself out in the garb of love, and on the whole it
is well that human beings should have an abiding sense of their own and
others insincerity, and test themselves by their willingness to
acknowledge their love before God and man. There are many Mildreds but
few Mertouns. It is little wonder that Dickens wrote with such
enthusiasm of this play that he knew no love like that of Mildred and
Mertoun, no passion like it.

[Illustration: An English Park]

One does not need to discuss whether murders were possible in English
social life. They are possible in all life